Wild video shows Maserati stolen by 3 teens going airborne at 123 mph and ramming store sign
ST PETERSBURG, FLORIDA: A Maserati stolen by three teenagers was caught on camera travelling at 123 mph before it took off and crashed through a store sign in Florida, killing one passenger and injuring the other two.
The three unlicensed teenagers stole the unlocked expensive silver sports car from a driveway with the keys still in the ignition at around 3.30 am, according to Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri. The teenage driver was speeding without the car's headlights on, lost control, hopped a curb, tipped over and crashed, the sheriff said.
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In helicopter footage released Tuesday, the deputies were ordered to back off after Keondrick Lang, 15, punched on the accelerator when they attempted to pull over his stolen car at 3:20 am on Sunday. “And then the driver of the car… he punches it,” Sheriff Bob Gualtieri told reporters, according to a live stream of the conference. “And as he’s punching it and he takes off, the deputies immediately turn off their overheads, the sergeant got on the radio and told them to disengage which they did immediately,” reported New York Post.
The deputies reduce their speeds to 35 mph, but the Maserati accelerates to a blinding speed the driver cannot handle. It can be seen in the video that as the car is speeding off, it begins to fishtail before going airborne and slamming into a business sign before landing upside down.
According to reports, the driver lost control of the Maserati between Martin Luther King Boulevard and 62nd Avenue. He did not have a driving license. The car passed a little over a mile and a quarter before the fatal crash. A 15-year-old passenger, Mario Bonilla, was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. A teen in the backseat and the driver Keondrick Lang,15, were transported to Bayfront Health and Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital.
Deputies were investigating a burglary unrelated to the fatal crash at around 3.20 am Sunday morning. Then the helicopter happens to see the three teens walking close to cars along 62nd Avenue in St Petersburg at that time. Gualtieri said deputies were instructed to investigate what had happened by the helicopter, In Tuesday's news conference.
Shortly after, the sheriff said three teens between 15 and 16 years old got into a Maserati near 62nd Avenue and 25th Way Street sat in the car for about a minute and then drove away leading to the deadly crash. Sheriff's officials later discovered a 25-caliber semiautomatic gun inside the car, which had been sold and resold since 1968, when its last official documentation was filed. According to authorities, the three allegedly sneaked out of their parents' houses during the course of the weekend on Saturday and Sunday. “None of them had any criminal histories but what appears clear is that these kids were out doing a whole bunch of bad things — they just hadn’t been caught,” Gualtieri told New York Post.
Within a minute and a half, the deputies begin their pursuit, and the car crashes 19 seconds after the police stop the chase, according to the police and the footage. Although charges have not yet been filed, the sheriff stated that Keondrick Lang might be charged with third-degree felony murder, which is used when someone is killed while a crime is being committed.